Hartford Charter Revision Process Needs Tweaking

EDITORIAL

November 07, 2013|Editorial, The Hartford Courant

Despite near-fiasco conditions, some voters in Hartford were paying attention this week. They approved a proposal that — with help from the General Assembly — will finally rid the city of redundant and expensive registrars of voters. It was the only bright spot in a charter revision process that itself needs rethinking.

The city charter adopted in 2002 created an automatic review process every decade, so that residents could make whatever changes were deemed necessary. An 11-member charter revision commission began work in 2012. Though the commission did have a robust debate about whether to shift from at-large to district council elections and other things, it did not have the level of public outreach and involvement that the 2002 process did. Without public involvement, there isn't as much public investment.

The 2002 commission focused on two big items, the strong mayor and hybrid school board. In part because the current commission had no wish to change either of those provisions, they ended up this year with a dozen less momentous recommendations, all approved by the council. One problem with this was getting them all on the ballot.

That was solved by creating a catch-all Question 1 made up of 10 disparate items — everything from raises for the mayor and treasurer to protections for the audit commission to line-item budget review. Question 2, about public funding of campaigns, was fairly straightforward. Question 3, about registrars, was written in impenetrable legalese.

Huh?

In short, most voters could not understand what they were being asked to vote for without the two pages of "explanatory materials" prepared at city hall. The materials were hard to find before the election, but officials promised they would be available at polling places.

Imagine the surprise of voters arriving at the polls Tuesday morning and finding no explanatory materials. The texts didn't begin arriving until midmorning at some polling places, almost noon at others.

Democratic Registrar of Voters Olga Vazquez offered the lamest of excuses, blaming other city officials for not providing her office with an "official" copy of the explanatory text. She said that when a voter brought her the text Tuesday morning, she made copies and distributed them to the polls after conferring with corporation counsel.

The bungling raised the question of whether the registrars dragged their feet on purpose, knowing that a Yes vote on Question 3 might put them out of a job at the end of this term.

Whether they did it intentionally or not — there's a fine line between sabotage and the general sloppiness that's pervaded city hall in recent years — they made the case that reform is needed.

Enough voters saw the need that Question 3 was the only one to pass.

If the legislature will pass enabling legislation — a challenge, given the political power of registrars — Hartford can have a single, nonpartisan, trained registrar.

Since 2008, the city has been wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on three registrars, forced by an antiquated state law that gives each major party a registrar, even if their candidate loses to a minor party candidate, who then also becomes a registrar.

Lessons

In retrospect, there were too many items to vote on. Some, such as a raise for the treasurer, could have been done by the council without changing the charter.

Indeed, most policy measures shouldn't be in a charter or constitution. These are framework documents that set basic laws, define areas of responsibility and create the balances of power between branches of government. The charter should contain only what needs to be there.

And it was a bad idea to put the charter questions up in an off-year election with only four school board seats up for election. In the future, charter questions should be put to voters in elections that are likely to draw more voters.